About the FOW Initiative
Who We Are
The Future of Work Initiative brings together researchers across the university to examine the evolution and future of work and the impact of MSU research in this area. The core faculty of this initiative come from three units within the College: The School of Human Resources and Labor Relations, the Department of Psychology, and the Department of Economics. Faculty from across the university have also partnered with us.
This cross-disciplinary research team will continue to grow as the Initiative evolves, and one of the goals of this group is to recruit more Social Science faculty with expertise in the human-technology interface, as well as bringing in HR executives and major companies to form an interdisciplinary consortium of MSU CSS faculty, industry leaders and STEM scientists.
Leading The Way
Dr. Tara Behrend
Dr. Tara Behrend is the John Richard Butler II Professor of Human Resources and Labor Relations at Michigan State University, and director of the Workplaces and Virtual Environments Lab (wave-lab.org). She is an expert in workplace technology use in the areas of assessment, training, performance measurement, and decision-making. She serves in multiple national leadership roles, including Chair of the National Academies Board on Human-Systems Integration and Chair of the APA Board of Scientific Affairs. She is a former Program Director at the National Science Foundation with responsibility for the Science of Organizations and Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier programs. She has authored and edited four books: Workforce Readiness and the Future of Work; Technology and Measurement Around the Globe; Research Methods for I-O Psychology, and Human-Technology Partnerships at Work. She is a Fellow and Past-President of the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology.
Dr. Layla Dang
Strada Postdoctoral Researcher
Layla is a postdoctoral fellow at MSU thanks to generous support from the Strada Education Foundation. She earned her PhD in social psychology from Purdue University in 2024. During her doctoral studies, Layla worked in Purdue’s Office of Undergraduate Research, where she evaluated undergraduate research programs and studied how research teams adapted to virtual and hybrid environments. This work fueled her interest in educational and work policies and programs, with an emphasis on questions relevant to the future of work. Her current research projects pertain to person-occupation fit, gender differences in career fit, skill development, educational pathways, and workforce development.
Faculty Affiliates
The Work We Do
- Examining how the experience of work is changing in the face of technological and social forces.
- Increasing opportunities for collaboration among researchers
- Elevating, promoting and distinguishing interdisciplinary research at MSU
- Engaging students in courses related to the evolving nature of work